Seth's Blog: The coming melt-down in higher education (as seen by a marketer)

College and University tuition should, I think, be seen as a form of bond purchased by risk-averse parents willing to buy a base level of third-decade-of-life-work-success for their offspring. From the "name brand" educational institutions graduates can write-their-own-resume going out ten years. While it is true the performance of this bond over its cost is not as good as it used to be I think Seth misses that knowledge is a minor part of what "name brand" education offers.

One must weigh the cost of tuition against the value of the high-achieving friends you might have coming out of a prestigious institution, subsequent prestigious jobs, good habits learned from peers, on top of raw knowledge gotten from a good education. For more on this see Paul Graham's essay "How to Start a Startup" (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html) and search for the words friend/friends.